This book represents an attempt to combine humanistic concern and pedagogic relevance in a systematic introductory textbook. A brief but enthusiastic introduction by Steve Allen asserts the importance of philosophic problems and Katen’s success at popularizing them in an entertaining fashion. The text itself is divided into three parts, dealing with the life, work, and persecution and death of the philosopher. Part I consists of a single short chapter which grants the poor public image of philosophers, but argues that philosophizing (...) is still an important activity. Part II is composed of three major chapters on the basic fields of epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics—logic and aesthetics are judged inappropriate for treatment here—plus two short chapters, "A Little Reflection on Some Big Questions", and "The Role of Philosophy in the Space Age". Part III offers a brief final chapter on "Philosophy, Human Freedom, and Tragedy" stressing philosophy as a way of life and the claim that no harm comes to good men since the good they do lives on even after their deaths. A few pictures and diagrams illustrate the text and each chapter concludes with a summary of points covered. There is a glossary of terms and an index, but no bibliography or list of suggested readings. The central discussion of major issues and viewpoints is quite traditional and generally competent. Relevance is sought mainly in the introductory sections and through such devices as catchy titles, contemporary idiom and references, puns, and double entendre. Lacking spontaneity, much of this appears forced, artificial, and dated, both chronologically and in its perceptions.—C.A.C. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Music Education in an Age of Virtuality and Post-Truth by Paul WoodfordPanagiotis A. KanellopoulosPaul Woodford, Music Education in an Age of Virtuality and Post-Truth (New York, Routledge, 2018)This book is provocative. And challenging. It is written with passion, aiming to induce controversy. And with good reason. For we live in times when populism professes an illusionary sense of community, invoking a seemingly 'anti-systemic' but highly hypocritical, racist, (...) and sexist discourse;1 in times where "bullshitting"2 has advanced to the highest governmental levels in many countries; in times where "authoritarian neoliberal statism"3 becomes the new status quo, inducing a scandalous increase of economic inequalities, forcing large populations to live precarious lives; in times where privatization of educational services in the context of market-oriented practices impose restrictive and ultimately unjust politics of accountability and performativity;4 in times where instrumentalization of educational ends has taken the lead, assisted by a systematic co-option and misappropriation of notions such as excellence and creativity;5 in times, finally, where spaces that allow for "the sharing (out) of the incalculable,"6 forging unknown potentialities in education, life, and thought, are being destroyed. In such times, Paul Woodford has stepped in, reclaiming his right to speak uncompromisingly.Hannah Arendt has written that "[w]hen men [sic] are deprived of the public space--which is constituted by acting together and then fills of its own accord [End Page 108] with the events and stories that develop into history--they retreat into their freedom of thought."7 Woodford refuses to retreat. He writes as a public intellectual of the highest order, committed to upset and not please those in power. A great service that his latest book performs is that it speaks daringly, stirring a debate that helps us all to do away with fear. For as Bertrand Russell has aptly said quite a long time ago, "[I]f thought is to become the possession of many, not the privilege of the few, we must have done with fear. It is fear that holds men [sic] back."8Resisting the "melancholy of inner exile,"9 but not immune to possible accusations of left melancholy, understood as "a refusal to come to terms with the particular character of the present,"10 the author wrote a book that provokes music educators to actively think beyond their sealed and safe world of convictions that is based on ideology-free conceptions of music teaching. Estelle Jorgensen has long ago brought to our attention the urgency of this task: "in an era in which the mindset and political reality have changed dramatically, … there is an urgent need to revisit the political character of music education and the ways in which it needs to address the cultural issues of our day."11Along this pathway, Woodford's book encourages music educators to live and teach as public intellectuals, forging "a democratic purpose for music education"12 that acts against the "anachronistic and formalist conception of music that reduces music education to supply-side economics as children are conceived as either future professional musicians or consumers and not as citizens to be prepared in schools to participate intelligently in the political life of society."13 Woodford articulates a vision of music education "as preparation for adulthood and democratic and global citizenship."14 He strongly advocates an approach that balances performance and creativity-based experiences with a socio-historical study of the social, ideological, and cultural workings of different musics in a wide variety of contexts. He encourages music educators to teach "how music's structural properties and qualities contribute to the shaping of people's perceptions and understandings of themselves and their world,"15 "asking the who, what, when, where, how, to, with, or for whom, and, most importantly of all, why of music."16 He envisions a music classroom that exercises social criticism "directly and self-consciously"17 both through "learning how to make music"18 and through thinking about music. He sees this approach as a tool for raising students' consciousness. Woodford's ultimate vision of music education is one that casts it as a means for cultivating "a justice-oriented" approach... (shrink)

Presumably, great men, including John Dewey, have great flaws. For decades, Dewey scholars assumed that the Hegelian cast of his early philosophy proved, prima facie, that it was merely derivative and hopelessly metaphysical in the worst possible sense of that term, as though nothing original or practically applicable to real life could possibly come from studying Hegel. I believe it is fair to say that, among Dewey scholars, the term “Hegelian” became an ossified pejorative that required little, if any, explanation. (...) “Hegelian,” and related terms such as “idealism” and “the dialectic,” were exempt from further inquiry. In recent years a growing number of scholars have taken closer looks at Dewey’s early writings.. (shrink)

This article draws on data from a qualitative research study undertaken in an old UK university with the main aim of investigating the issue of the gender dimension of academic careers. It examines the idea of an individualistic academic career that demands self-promotion, which is still used as a measure of achievement by those in senior positions. However, there is a basic contradiction. While this idea is upheld, men simultaneously gain by an in-built patriarchal support system. They do not have (...) to make a conscious effort to be helped by it, thereby perpetuating the cultural hegemony of individualism. Women are not admitted to this support system, and if they are seen as needing or wanting to set up their own system, this is viewed as a weakness. The answer appears to be for women to strategically harness feminist ways of working in a collaborative and supportive way. (shrink)

The Alternative Model of Personality Disorders integrates several theoretical models of personality functioning, including interpersonal theory. The interpersonal circumplex dimensions of warmth and dominance can be conceptualized as traits similar to those in AMPD Criterion B, but interpersonal theory also offers dynamic hypotheses about how these variables that change from moment to moment, which help to operationalize some of the processes alluded to in AMPD Criterion A. In the psychotherapy literature, dynamic interpersonal behaviors are thought to be critical for identifying (...) therapeutic alliance ruptures, yet few studies have examined moment-to-moment interpersonal behaviors that are associated with alliance ruptures at an idiographic level. The current study examined the concurrent and cross-lagged relationships between interpersonal behaviors and alliance ruptures within each session in the famous Gloria films. Interpersonal behaviors as well as alliance ruptures were calculated at half minute intervals for each dyad. We identified distinct interpersonal patterns associated with alliance ruptures for each session: Gloria ’s warmth was positively related with withdrawal ruptures concurrently in the session with Carl Rogers; Gloria’s dominance and coldness were related with increased confrontation ruptures in the session with Fritz Perls concurrently, while her coldness was also predicted by confrontation ruptures at previous moments; lastly, both Gloria’s dominance and Albert Ellis’s submissiveness were positively related with withdrawal ruptures. These interpersonal patterns demonstrated the promise of using AMPD dimensions to conceptualize momentary interpersonal processes related to therapy ruptures, as well as the clinical importance of attuning to repetitive, dyad-specific interpersonal cues of ruptures within each session. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:"To make a difference...":Narrative Desire in Global MedicineByron J. Good and Mary-Jo DelVecchio GoodIf, as Arthur Frank (2002) writes, "moral life, for better and worse, takes place in storytelling," this collection of narratives written by physicians working in field settings in global medicine gives us a glimpse of some aspects of moral experience, practice, and dilemmas in settings of poverty and low health care resources. These essays are (...) written from the midst of practice, in diverse settings in Africa, South Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the United States. The majority of the writers are practitioners of contemporary 'global medicine'—physicians from North America or Europe who spend part of their lives flying into settings of poverty or special need to practice medicine and work with on-going collaborative clinical and public health systems—while a smaller number are working in the societies in which they were born. Although a few work for classic humanitarian organizations or have developed their own local NGO's, the great majority are engaged in the 'hybrid life' described by Robert Riviello and noted by Renée Fox, moving between academic medical centers and distant health care systems that are supported by local governments, major international organizations and funding agencies, and international NGO's like Partners in Health. These diverse forms of practice have become a common model for contemporary clinicians engaged in what has emerged as a new discipline of global health or global medicine, and these narratives give us a glimpse of some of the enduring, as well as newly emerging, forms of moral practice and ethical dilemmas characteristic of today's global medicine.Many of these stories are filled with the tension and pathos that makes clinical narratives powerful to read. Physicians are forced to make unfathomable decisions about whether to resuscitate and keep a baby alive, using all means available, or to let the infant die, whether to carry out a procedure that will save an infant in birth but would put the mother at risk, about how to deal with a cancer found in a very advanced state. However, virtually all of the stories transcend these classical stories of the decisions physicians are forced to make by being placed in settings of great scarcity of resources, which stand in particular contrast to the academic medical settings in North America or Europe where many of these global medicine specialists have trained and many continue to practice. The unspeakable inequality of resources emerges throughout these narratives as a kind of master theme, as the underlying moral, as opposed to plot, which gives meaning and sense to the stories. For those who practice medicine in such settings, global inequalities and scarcity of medical resources are deeply felt. They produce the rage that Jeffrey Deal describes. ("I learned to despise American churches during that time, a time when my world encompassed a dying newborn in Sudan, as well as the air conditioned padded seats [End Page 121] of our affluent suburban church.") They produce the distinctive experiences of helplessness and pain felt by clinicians who cannot separate how they would be able to treat such a patient at home from how they have to practice in these settings. For those clinicians working in their own societies, scarcity of resources often produces deep anger at the corrupt governments that fail to support basic human services for the great majority of their population. ("We were temporary actors performing in the cynical play of scarcity on permanent display in Port-au-Prince," writes Haitian physician Paul Pierre about his experience prior to joining Partners in Health.)But for those who regularly travel back and forth across the divide between rich and poor, whether across national boundaries or within their own society, the challenge to live a moral life is unendingly complicated. While becoming a part of a struggle for global justice with colleagues and advocates from both sides of the divide, few of the narrators can avoid personal feelings of ambivalence and guilt at being able to easily move from one side of that divide to the other back home. Many fantasize about giving up their lives in the north to devote themselves... (shrink)

BackgroundYouth are increasingly aware of the negative effects of climate change on the planet and human health, but this knowledge can often come with significant affective responses, such as psychological distress, anger, or despair. Experiencing major “negative” emotions, like worry, guilt, and hopelessness in anticipation of climate change has been identified with the term eco-anxiety. Emerging literature focuses on adults' experience; however, little is known about the ways in which children and youth experience eco-anxiety.ObjectivesThe aim of this review was to: (...) identify the available evidence on the topic of eco-anxiety in children, clarify the mental health consequences brought by the awareness of climate change in this population, and identify knowledge gaps in the literature and considerations for future research.MethodsGiven that the research on the topic of eco-anxiety in children is limited, that there are very few randomized controlled trials, and that the goal is not to analyze individual studies in-depth, a scoping review was used. Keywords pertaining to the themes of eco-anxiety, climate change and children were used as search terms in five databases. Journal articles using qualitative and quantitative methods, as well as gray literature were examined by two independent reviewers. A descriptive-analytical method was used to chart the data that emerged from the literature. Eighteen articles were considered in the final analysis.ResultsEvidence confirms that children experience affective responses and eco-anxiety in reaction to then awareness of climate change. Mental health outcomes include depression, anxiety, and extreme emotions like sadness, anger, and fear. Youth from vulnerable communities, like indigenous communities, or those who have strong ties to the land are often identified as being emotionally impacted by climate change. The literature analyzed also describes how children and youth are coping with eco-anxiety, including maladaptive and adaptive responses. Preliminary considerations for parents, teachers and educators, mental health care providers, school systems, adults and people of power include adding age-appropriate climate education to the school curriculum, considering youth's emotions, and promoting healthy coping through empowerment. Important gaps exist in the definition of eco-anxiety in youth, as various characterizations of this emerging concept are found across articles. (shrink)

_The first part called the Preamble tackles: (a) the issues of silence and speech, and life and disease; (b) whether we need to know some or all of the truth, and how are exact science and philosophical reason related; (c) the phenomenon of Why, How, and What; (d) how are mind and brain related; (e) what is robust eclecticism, empirical/scientific enquiry, replicability/refutability, and the role of diagnosis and medical model in psychiatry; (f) bioethics and the four principles of beneficence, non-malfeasance, (...) autonomy, and justice; (g) the four concepts of disease, illness, sickness, and disorder; how confusion is confounded by these concepts but clarity is imperative if we want to make sense out of them; and how psychiatry is an interim medical discipline. The second part called The Issues deals with: (a) the concepts of nature and nurture; the biological and the psychosocial; and psychiatric disease and brain pathophysiology; (b) biology, Freud and the reinvention of psychiatry; (c) critics of psychiatry, mind-body problem and paradigm shifts in psychiatry; (d) the biological, the psychoanalytic, the psychosocial and the cognitive; (e) the issues of clarity, reductionism, and integration; (f) what are the fool-proof criteria, which are false leads, and what is the need for questioning assumptions in psychiatry. The third part is called Psychiatric Disorder, Psychiatric Ethics, and Psychiatry Connected Disciplines. It includes topics like (a) psychiatric disorder, mental health, and mental phenomena; (b) issues in psychiatric ethics; (c) social psychiatry, liaison psychiatry, psychosomatic medicine, forensic psychiatry, and neuropsychiatry. The fourth part is called Antipsychiatry, Blunting Creativity, etc. It includes topics like (a) antipsychiatry revisited; (b) basic arguments of antipsychiatry, Szasz, etc.; (c) psychiatric classification and value judgment; (d) conformity, labeling, and blunting creativity. The fifth part is called The Role of Philosophy, Religion, and Spirituality in Psychiatry. It includes topics like (a) relevance of philosophy to psychiatry; (b) psychiatry, religion, spirituality, and culture; (c) ancient Indian concepts and contemporary psychiatry; (d) Indian holism and Western reductionism; (e) science, humanism, and the nomothetic-idiographic orientation. The last part, called Final Goal, talks of the need for a grand unified theory. The whole discussion is put in the form of refutable points._. (shrink)

Differences between men and women in the performance of tests designed to measure spatial abilities are explained by evolutionary psychologists in terms of adaptive design. The Hunter-Gatherer Theory of Spatial Ability suggests that the adoption of a hunter-gatherer lifestyle (assuming a sexual division of labor) created differential selective pressure on the development of spatial skills in men and women and, therefore, cognitive differences between the sexes. Here, we examine a basic spatial skill—wayfinding (the ability to plan routes and navigate a (...) landscape)—in men and women in a natural, real-world setting as a means of testing the proposition that sex-based differences in spatial ability exist outside of the laboratory. Our results indicate that when physical differences are accounted for, men and women with equivalent experience perform equally well at complex navigation tasks in a real-world setting. We conclude that experience, gendered patterns of activity, and self-assessment are contributing factors in producing previously reported differences in spatial ability. (shrink)

While a significant body of literature has highlighted the moral obligations of companies regarding the sustainable use of common pool resources, business activities that contribute to the sustenance of common pool resources remain embryonic. Studies in this area have largely focused on environmental stimuli rather than on the complex motivational structures that drive or hinder businesses’ contributions to common pool resources. We explore the different motives and behaviors of businesses and their contributions to common pool resources, and propose four roles (...) by which companies’ motives and behaviors toward common pool resources can be categorized—namely, free riders, followers, believers, and altruists. We shift the focus from moral reasoning to Platt’s :641–651, 1973) notion of social trapping and his “ways out” as Platt’s “ways out” include propositions that address not only environmental stimuli but also companies’ motives. Both types of propositions are important for businesses to be able to respond rapidly to the scarcity of certain common pool resources and to use and maintain common pool resources in a sustainable way. Based on our categorization and Platt’s typology of social traps and “ways out,” we propose a theoretical framework by which companies and other stakeholders are provided with a differentiating perspective that allows for propositions addressing the complex nature of motivational structures and common pool resources. Our framework helps business leaders, institutions, and policy makers decide on actions that can contribute to the sustainability of common pool resources and that differ from actions that solely serve organizational self-interests. (shrink)

Few propositions are so widely affirmed among Christian theists as God is wholly good. We say of God that he is wholly good when we mean to say that God never does evil. One proposed explanation for why God is wholly good, of course, is that God is necessarily good. Although is uncontroversial among Christian theists, clearly does not enjoy such universal favour. Whereas such prominent theists as St Anselm, St Thomas Aquinas, Alvin Plantinga, and T. (...) V. Morris have defended the truth of, other theists claim to have found good reason to doubt God's necessary goodness. In this paper I will attempt to show that God's goodness is accidental to him. My argument will proceed faithfully along Anselmian lines, i.e. a key premise will concern God conceived of as ‘ the being than which none greater can be conceived’. In addition to this, I will need to activate action-theoretic machinery which will be crucial to the derivation. Rather than detracting from God's greatness, the argument's conclusion, namely God is contingently good, is seen as faithfully articulating one facet of Anselm's core intuition of God as the ‘greatest possible being’. Is God necessarily good? I shall shortly present an argument which gives one good reason to doubt God's necessary goodness. But before I begin, I shall need to develop a backdrop of philosophical theology and action-theoretic machinery from which to suspend the argument in question. (shrink)

The editor suggested my writing an article on the question whether it was possible to provide an ethics based upon principles which would be agreed to by all enlightened men, and he further suggested that I should begin the article by stating clearly what morality is. That is a somewhat difficult task, because while “morality” might be defined as “living as one ought,” it is a very disputable question whether and how this “ought” is itself to be defined, and I (...) could not undertake to deal with this question by the way as an introduction to an article on something else. It is, however, clear that there is another sense of “ought” besides the strictly moral sense. We do use the term in cases where it does not entail that a man is neglecting his moral duty if he does not do what he “ought.” For instance we say: “You ought to have seen that film,” “You ought not to have made that move,” “You ought to have seen through that argument,” even “Hitler ought to have invaded England after Dunkirk” where we should have regarded it as the reverse of a good thing if he had done what we say he ought. In none of these cases are we asserting a moral obligation. For we do not ordinarily regard people as under a moral obligation to seek their own pleasure, nor to make certain moves in a game, and while we should say that in matters of serious concern a person is morally obliged to do his best to form a true view as to the merits of a relevant argument, we should not say that he was morally obliged actually to form a true view, for this does not depend solely on his will. And in the fourth instance the action is one which we should think morally wrong rather than morally obligatory. What is there in common between “ought” as used in these cases and the moral “ought”? It is that in each case the action fits the situation, either wholly, or with certain limitations, as in the last instance where we presumably mean that to invade England would have fitted in better with Hitler's ends in the given environment than did the policy Hitler actually adopted. (shrink)

A reciprocity framework is presented as an analysis of morality, and to explain and justify the attribution of moral rights and duties. To say an entity has rights makes sense only if that entity can fulfill reciprocal duties, i.e., can act as a moral agent. To be a moral agent an entity must (1) be self-conscious, (2) understand general principles, (3) have free will, (4) understand the given principles, (5) be physicallycapable of acting, and (6) intend to act according to (...) or against the given principles. This framework is foundational both to empirical and supernatural positions which distinguish a human milieu, which is moral, from a nonhuman milieu, which is not. It also provides a basis for evaluating four standard arguments for the rights ofnonhuman animals and nature-the ecological, the prudential, the sentimental, and the contractual. If reciprocity is taken as being central to the general concepts of rights and duties, then few animals, and no natural objects or natural systems, have rights and duties in an intrinsic or primary sense, although they may be assigned them in an extrinsic or secondary sense as a convenience in connection with human interests. Nevertheless, there are some animals besides humans - e.g., especially chimpanzees, gorillas, dolphins, and dogs - which, in accordance with good behavioral evidence, are moral entities, and sometimes moral agents. On the grounds of reciprocity, they merit, at aminimum, intrinsic or primary rights to life and to relief from unnecessary suffering. (shrink)

continent. 2.2 (2012): 155–158 Michel Serres. Biogea . Trans. Randolph Burks. Minneapolis: Univocal Publishing. 2012. 200 pp. | ISBN 9781937561086 | $22.95 Conveying to potential readers the significance of a book puts me at risk of glad handing. It’s not in my interest to laud the undeserving, especially on the pages of this journal. This is not a sales pitch, but rather an affirmation of a necessary work on very troubled terms: human, earth, nature, and the problematic world we made. (...) It is this world that aspirates the silence (so to speak), and therefore the subject which, along with the development of the “made world” exports the excess augmentation of the cosmically missing, this silence of the natural, et cetera. Had we learned from Locke that lesson of “labor,” to consume what we need… but perhaps we need more than what matters? Serres’ Biogea has several functions on this manner, if it is indeed a book to be consumed. First, readers searching for novelistic entertainment have a place to dwell. Biogea deserves a place in your back pocket; biographical generosity and poetic fluidity should satisfy most textual fetishes. For lay philosophers who want to refresh their acumen, Biogea deserves a place on the book shelf, one already reads a sorely needed postmodern tune-up here. Serres’ style is clearly French; he leaves few cheese crumbs on his words, rather preciseness and breathing in the work give way to a sweeping manner that breaks the narrative line of sight. A circular narrative and anachronistic fragmentation of terms allows an abyssal atmosphere to swell, if only to pump into the book the externality of its broader text. Biogea aspires to a higher standard and the book, at times, is thinking this negentropic problem too. Univocal, the publisher, has crafted a book appropriate for the hands to hold and the translations are an achievement of an otherwise difficult writer to translate. Terms are the conditions of a broader text. It is important to note that Serres’ content is as much a thinking of terminal ports. There is a regard for the transportation technology of the written word. For me, this is the mark of genius, a craftiness that tells of a book device that I may trust. Serres is an accomplished thinker and a necessary voice to check the putative trendiness of anti-postmodernist and market-driven theory of endless cultural liquidation. Offering interventions on subjectivity as an open system we are given a chance to affirm the human, not merely to discard it, but to engage its poetic image emotion, the calibratory silent sense of the analogic world; the terms on which we base our efforts. 1 The human is the center of its own negation, constantly mediating it. Something deeper at stake appears in the work then, and it is quite obvious from the onset. Certainly, a book is an intensification of possible text and those who brought this actual book into existence have captured a rarity in regards to the subject matter and artistic accomplishment. I mentioned terms as conditions, so let us understand Biogea as bio-yea, a yes to bios . An affirmation of living and accepting presence for all of its defiance of images, words, and things temporal. Therefore Serres’ existence and its existants plays parts; out of linearity and still like a porous bone pumping blood it manufactures into the fleshy life it becomes. Starting from a man named silence chaos emerges, or the man “Old Taciturn” takes up a journey anticipating a great flood. In other words, a development akin to the one in Genesis. In dealing with this ancestral occupation, fusing Genesis with contemporary philosophical terms, Serres initiates this anachronistic fragmentation under the forming subjectivity of his own autobiography. This mutation in the open system is precisely one of Serres’ terms. There an abyss is at work, stated, but also measured by heels on the ground—the abyss dispatching earthen tensions, that which plays our tunes, that which we abide by and recognize in volcanoes, rivers, oceans, earthquakes and weaponry in the battles of the world. Set in later stages of the book, such tensions are harnessed through scientific principles in an attempt to unify the terms of natural force if only to terminate the world. Thus the elevation of the earth into the world is clearly set forth. Here already, and few pages in, a resonance is set forth under appellations such as the river Garonne, a subjectivity as much as it is inhuman, the river is the inhuman that makes us human. I get the sense that Serres is taking up a challenge issued by Wallace Stevens; namely, that the great poems of heaven and hell have been written, but that only the poem of the earth has resisted composition. 2 On this level we cannot avoid the killing factor of silence, given that our cognition blocks its pure, radical obliteration. Thus a silence of attunement to the earth is in a novel dialectic of the rithmic and rhythm. A technological world, a triumph of termination is set forth. If a text imposes its will given the reader who authorizes it, it is made to convey or convect a presupposition to a reader or its inhabitant(s). Text is therefore both, in-content, contenting, contentedness, and in reading it, a way to navigate self-destruction (dis-content). Here then would one note that the “inhuman” reveals itself, “an aperiodic rhythm of lovers and beloved…the sea as our friend…but as our enemy…maternal vivifying sea.” The sea is an open book, or vaginal birth canal, where the engagement of text comes forth: “…woman sea, open vulva.” One sees like the sea, but only after it, when the uninhabitable truth of inhabiting it switches the polarity of the sailors soul: “I was seeing like the sea” (9-11). In other words, we are invited to embrace the nonsense of the visible. At this point I am taken to Jean-François Lyotard’s work The Inhuman , specifically the first entry on negentropy that would be congruent with Serres’ thematic. 3 The human being exports, deports, or transplants its relation through text, through the system— and this is its sense or relation to silence, to music. Unaware of Serres’ proximity to this work, the concept of gender interrelation as regards a solar catastrophe runs clear. It would be, on this basis, that Serres references his peers, the other texts that, as mentioned above, are discarded in philosophy today. For students of philosophy what we have here is perhaps a gift, a needed project. If silence and death are at work, there is a political valence to deal with, and here, much like the domain of the text and the dominion of the reader, we confront the world of natural, fluid violence. The anti-postmodernist critique is in part based on a weak idea that the loss of ideology, of a world vision, motivates the “correlationist” project. 4 Serres seems to offer another way to view this when he notes that whereas persons “sometimes kill,” it is clearly “the collective” that “always kills” (17). What is the collective today, if not an organizing function we never see yet acts in its favor in the name of truth? One feels a sense of enigma here, if only to link to what Stevens remarked of communism as a “grubby faith,” providing this applies for capitalism as well, namely any ideology of progress overly interested in absolutes. Here we get the sense that the inhuman, silence, this type of killing, always killing, could not be matched by human-made, political dynamos. Or that if it comes to an equilibrium, a catastrophe is never too far from us to read with our heels. We are left to note that the forces of nature presuppose and permeate political systems, the more these systems obtain force, the more the system takes upon itself the proper name of nature that motivates its dissemination, albeit falsely. This note, that in an age of ecocide and technological captivity (sustainability and transparency) political regimes won’t grow our soul-learning ears any larger than our tongues, stands clear to us. The promise of technological desubjectification is here pushed aside. Regarding politics, Serres illustrates this fact: Where did this corpse come from? Who was it? Who killed it? I don’t know. I won’t try to find out. I refuse to get vengeance for it. And I only see Garonne. For our victims, today, are the rivers, too. Their waters have irrigated my life, enchanted my thought, invigorated my body; I’ve known them to be threatening, untamable, as dangerous as the sea when it rages. Yes, murderous. They decided to control their courses; dams, sometimes senseless, destroying sites and valleys, reduced entire populations to servile displacements; programs for the irrigation of thirsty farmland, often beneficial of course, completed their drying up.(22) Serres enters into his idea concerning the captivity of language from the natural into a world system: For thousands of years, we have been licking things with our tongues, covering and daubing them so as to appropriate things for ourselves. If language boils down to a convention, this convention took place between the speakers without consulting the thing named, become as a result the property of those who covered it in this way with their drawn or voiced productions. Malfeasance analyzes these acts of appropriation. Thus every inert object, every living thing as well, sleeps under the covers of signs, a little in the way that, today, a thousand posters shouting messages and ugly riots of color drown, with their filthy flood, the landscapes, or better, exclude them from perception because the meaning, almost nil, of this false language and these base images forms an irresistible source of attraction to our neurons and eyes. This appropriation covers the world’s beauty with ugliness. (38-39) Technological concealment coming to bear, we begin to get a sense of another commentary on the condition of sensing, driving home the necessity of a text dealing with such subject matter to be what its terms insist. Thus toward new openings: The new opening. As low beneath our feet as you like, the Biogea opens us to another space, high enough for us to be able to acquire a wisdom there, that of redeveloping this same place differently from our fathers, this place that’s still politically cut up by old hatreds, beneath the flood of tears and blood that we call history. Without this soft place, spiritually very old, but newly conceived in this way, without the juridical construction of a common good, opposed to our filthy ownership, I don’t see how our planet, hard, will survive. Hardness that depends on a softness, material belonging that depends on this temporary rented location (51). Serres enters into a summit on the content and the structure of his work. Archimedes is brought in with the concept of three volcanoes. Meaning fire, but as well earth, water, air. For it was Archimedes’ war machines that sought to lift the earth, thus bringing in the question of principles of science: “can a principle be invented while controlling its consequences?” (66-7). May the earth be put in a sentence, terminated by terminology, appellations, gone wild? By means of these element-dominating laws, this old physicist began to tear nature away from the ancient myths; by a strange return, today we’re plunging our successes back into the anxieties and terrors from which that ancient physics was born. Yes, our new history of science and technology is plunging, today, as though in a loop, into the fundamental human myths from which Empedocles’ first laws came. A major progression and a regression on the nether side of the origins. Consequently, the contemporary time requires that we try to return to that unity in which the principles of hate and love are at the same time human, living, inert and global. We will never attain a deontology of our knowledge and actions without thinking the subjective, the objective, the collective, and the cognitive all together simultaneously. Here, hate and love are the result of these four components.(71) Working then on the concept of fire-starting mirrors to the atomic annihilation of the Second War, Serres works into the subjectivity in question on the matter of rhythm—say rithmic— precisely at that point: Knowledge is changing today. The all-political is dying; the monarchy of the sciences said to be hard is coming to a close. The science of the things of the world will have to communicate just as much as the things of the world do, which do it much better than humans do, who don’t always want to do it. Let’s celebrate two changes this morning. The first one strikes a new blow to our narcissism. No, knowledge and the world don’t resemble our analytical enjoyments of refined cutting up, of endless debates and of exclusions full of hate. They, on the contrary, form a bloc and a sum, alliance and alloys. Uniting the fields of knowledge among themselves the way the things are connected among themselves, the second newness puts into place sets united by interlacing, webs and simplexes that combine with the things of the world, themselves combined, the combined knowledge that understands them.(130-1) Biogea closes on its opening flood thematic, approaching the initial telos of Genesis. Here the trees are brought into a position with atmosphere, the opaque abyssal reservoir, the tomb of the sun, sea in the polarity of the earthen heaven and hell. The poem of the earth then is silent but deadly, indeed, as funny as that phrase is, mainly a tomb gas. The meaning of the living and the non-meaning of things converge in the muteness of the world; this meaning and non-meaning plunge there and come out, the ultimate eddy. Mundus patet: through a fissure, through an opening, a fault, a cleft come noises, calls as small as these apertures. I’m listening, attentive, I’m translating, I’m advancing in the scaled-down meaning and science. Mundus patet: should the world open greatly, it will launch me into its silence. The totality remains silent. Knowledge expanded in elation. White origin of meaning, fountain of joy. (198) Final Remarks One test of a review is the long term trajectory the referee thinks the book will have. I see Serres’ text lending greatly into the vision of Biogea . In fact, in the vision of the novel inquiries of Stephen Jay Gould’s work there is something to be thought on the level of the individual and the species; namely, that humanity and its uniqueness is in its deferral, its thinking and naming, a thinking surrounded by silence that filters into everything, that pulls us through the world, the kinetic pulse we recognize, and all of that we cleave away in the base philosophical maxim of difference itself. Unique individuals are spatial creatures: we dwell, and we ought to get good at it. Yet this is an imaginative space that, if you are crazy enough to believe it, de-term-ine the conditions of its own terms. That is why we are not merely creating spaces on the acceleration of time, or so this ignoramus thinks, to accidentally transcend. Imagination already has this insatiable silence that we drink up and fail to manifest. Space is timeless. The imagination itself, shared by humans for themselves, their objects, and the species as a whole, is a non-defined space of relation; a whole human trajectory as part of nature, and part of worlds that are the other side of thinking nature, the consequence of it, at least our attempt to do so. Our survival is based on our deliberation, our caution, our natural deconstructive sense toward this silence that is already part of the song, sung, singing of this century without end. Good books will let us inhabit this space and recognize a form of life. Serres’ text moves toward dwelling, as noted, in masterful and accessible ways. The pitched battles are the falling replays of anemic and dead politics. As soon as we realize there is humanity, we may be able to enjoy the end of it, our inhuman capability of listening to silence. NOTES 1. See Michel Serres. The Parasite . Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 2007. 2. Wallace Stevens, “Imagination as Value” [ca. 1945], in Collected Poetry and Prose . New York: The Library of America. 1997. 724-39. 3. Jean-François Lyotard. The Inhuman: Reflections on Time . Trans. Geoffrey Bennington & Rachel Bowlby. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. 1992. 4. See the introduction: Quentin Melliassoux. After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency . Trans. Ray Brassier. New York: Continuum. 2008. EDITOR'S NOTE: This review was updated on August 8, 2012. Substantial edits include block quotes from the book under review as well as the inclusion of comments from the author. (shrink)

The term "callous" has not, to this point, been studied empirically or considered philosophically in the context of healthcare professionalism. It should be, however, because its uses seem peculiar. Sometimes "callous" is used to suggest that becoming callous confers a benefit of some protection against emotional distress, which might be considered expedient in the healthcare work environment. But, "callous" also refers to a person's unappealing demeanor of hardened insensitivity. The tension between these different moral connotations of "callous" prompts several empirical, (...) psychological, and moral questions; I introduce and entertain a few here. I also suggest a distinction between callousness and inurement and argue for why this distinction is important to appreciate and uphold in health professions education. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Aëtıana. The Method and Intellectual Context of a Doxographer, Volume One: The Sources by J. Mansfeld and D. T. RuniaA. A. LongJ. Mansfeld and D. T. Runia. Aëtıana. The Method and Intellectual Context of a Doxographer, Volume One: The Sources. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1997. Pp. xxii + 371. Cloth, $135.50In this book, the first of a projected series of volumes, Mansfeld and Runia have begun a massive investigation (...) of the (mainly Greek) authors on whom we moderns rely for information about the numerous Greek philosophers whose works have not survived. The thousand-year tradition of Greek philosophy, extending from the Presocratics to Neoplatonism, is largely a story told via quotations, biographies, classifications, epitomes and criticisms. A few great works survive intact, including especially the dialogues of Plato, the technical writings of Aristotle, the sceptical books of Sextus Empiricus, and the Enneads of Plotinus; we also have most of the work on lost philosophers composed by such prolific authors as Cicero, Plutarch and Galen, and there are other well-known “sources,” such as the ten books of Lives and Doctrines, compiled by Diogenes Laertius. The present volume, however, deals with more recondite material: a work (P) on the physical doctrines of the philosophers, misattributed to Plutarch; a similar work, misattributed to Galen (G); the anthology of the Byzantine scholar Stobaeus (S); some chapters of Eusebius’ Praeparatio Evangelica (E); a work of Christian apologetics by the Syrian bishop Theodoret (T); and (in less detail) a few further writers from later antiquity.What unifies this set of authors is the thesis put forward by Hermann Diels in his monumental Doxographi Graeci (1879), to the effect that all of them, directly or indirectly, are derived from a single work composed in about 100 CE by Aetius. According to Diels, Aetius derived his material from a much older collection (Vetusta Placita), and this, in its turn, was ultimately dependent on an extensive work by Aristotle’s pupil and successor, Theophrastus. Diels’ thesis, which underpins his collection of testimonia for the Presocratics (the “A” fragments of Diels/Kranz Vorsokratiker), has been the foundation of all subsequent work on the sources of fragmentary Greek (especially Presocratic) philosophers. Diels gave the name “doxography” to the genre of writing he took to be represented by Aetius and the authors of similar accounts of philosophical doctrines.The volume under review explains, tests, supplements, and revises just that part of Diels’ thesis which invokes Aetius and the subsequent sources supposedly derived from this lost work. Mansfeld and Runia are uniquely qualified for this daunting task. Each of them has worked extensively on the historiography of Greek philosophy. As a Dutch duo in this volume, they bring unrivalled expertise to bear on revisiting the work of the formidable Diels.The good news is that Diels’ Aetian hypothesis has been vindicated for the most part. Although the name Aetius is attested to by only Theodoret, Diels was quite right to deduce that Aetius’ compilation was the source of the material common to P, S, and T, and that E and G make extensive use of P. Hence scholars of ancient philosophy can continue to impose confidence in that part of Diels’ work which takes the story from Aetius into later antiquity. This finding means that the work of Mansfeld and Runia will hardly change one’s judgment concerning what can be known about the actual doctrines of fragmentary philosophers.What it will particularly affect is one’s understanding of the lost Aetius himself and [End Page 523] the surviving authors whose work is directly derived from him. The core of this book (primarily composed by Runia) is a set of chapters on P, S, and T, in which these three authors are studied for their own sake and their different methodologies carefully set out. Diels, under the influence of nineteenth-century philology, treated P, S, and T as if they were variant manuscripts rather than distinct authors. This misled him into regarding the doxographical tradition as much more uniform than it actually is. In earlier works both Mansfeld and Runia have greatly illuminated the dialectical and classificatory ways in which philosophical doctrines were... (shrink)

In this Habilitationsschrift a comparison is drawn between the concept of truth in Husserl and in Heidegger in order to elucidate the problem of truth in our time. According to Tugendhat, truth in the nominalistic sense of neo-positivism and truth in the vague mysticism of Heidegger have moved so far apart that it is now impossible to speak of either of them in terms of the other. Furthermore they have both lost their guiding role in human life. Tugendhat is convinced (...) that the reason for this dissolution of truth is the absence of precisely that sense of critical responsibility which he finds so conspicuous in Husserl--and of which the sixth volume of his Logical Investigation is a good example. Though the emphasis on this investigation is fully justified, the promise of far-reaching analysis never materializes. The comparison of logical and linguistic terminology and doctrine is confined to a few side remarks, the most interesting of which are about C. I. Lewis. The treatment of Heidegger is based primarily on Being and Time, On the Essence of Ground, and On the Essence of Truth, with some negligible references to later writings. Heidegger's theory of language is very much neglected. Even the question of propositional truth, which the author is avowedly trying to keep in the foreground, receives keener exposition than commentary.--A. M. (shrink)

1. Transmission Jim’s teacher has just given him his marked maths exam. Jim knows that his mark is 7.25 out of 22. He also knows that the pass mark is 35%. Does Jim know he has failed? No, he doesn’t. Not yet. As you would expect from his mark, Jim is not very good with numbers. He’ll need a few minutes with pencil and paper to work out that 7.25 is less than 35% of 22. Only then will he (...) know that he has failed. This case exemplifies a common and important phenomenon: someone recognises the validity of an inference from a set of premises that he knows, and in so doing he acquires knowledge of the conclusion. Jim knows that his mark is 7.25 out of 22 and that the passmark is 35%. Then, by virtue of his calculation, he comes to recognise the validity of the inference from these premises to the conclusion that he has failed, thereby coming to know the sad truth. It is undeniable that there are many cases, like Jim’s, in which recognising the validity of an inference from known premises brings about knowledge of the conclusion, as this is the most natural characterisation of what goes on when we acquire knowledge by deductive inference. But can knowledge always be acquired in this way? Does recognition of the validity of an inference from known premises always bring about knowledge of the conclusion? (shrink)

Purpose A survey of the attitudes of students in eight countries towards the revelations of mass surveillance by the US’ NSA and the UK’s GCHQ has been described in an introductory paper and seven country-specific papers. This paper aims to present a comparison of the results from these countries and draws conclusions about the similarities and differences noted. Design/methodology/approach A questionnaire was deployed in Germany, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, The People’s Republic of China, Spain, Sweden and Taiwan. The original survey (...) was in English, translated into German, Japanese and Chinese for relevant countries. The survey consists of a combination of Likert scale, Yes/no and free-text responses. The results are quantitatively analysed using appropriate statistical tools and the qualitative answers are interpreted. Findings There are significant differences between respondents in the countries surveyed with respect to their general privacy attitudes and their willingness to follow Snowden’s lead, even where they believe his actions served the public good. Research limitations/implications Owing to resource limitations, only university students were surveyed. In some countries, the relatively small number of respondents limits the ability to make meaningful statistical comparisons between respondents from those countries and from elsewhere on some issues. Practical implications Snowden’s actions are generally seen as laudable and having had positive results, among the respondents surveyed. Such results should give pause to governments seeking to expand mass surveillance by government entities. Originality/value There have been few surveys regarding attitudes to Snowden’s revelations, despite the significant press attention and political actions that have flowed from it. The context of attitudes to both the actions he revealed and the act of revelation itself is useful in constructing political and philosophical arguments about the balance between surveillance activity for state security and the privacy of individual citizens. (shrink)

The study explored the motivations behind Australian wool producers’ intentions regarding mulesing; a surgical procedure that will be voluntarily phased out after 2010, following retailer boycotts led by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Telephone interviews were conducted with 22 West Australian wool producers and consultants to elicit their behavioral, normative and control beliefs about mulesing and alternative methods of breech strike prevention. Results indicate that approximately half the interviewees intend to continue mulesing, despite attitudes toward the act of (...) mulesing being quite negative. This indicates that attitudes alone are unlikely to be good predictors of this goal directed behavior. Most respondents believed mulesing was more effective and involved less cost, time, and effort than the currently available alternatives to prevent breech strike. Further, they felt relatively little social pressure, as they believed few consumers were concerned about mulesing. However, they noted that if consumer sentiment changed they would likely change their practices. Thus, attitudes are likely to be only one of several factors influencing intentions to change farm practices to address societal concerns about animal welfare. Further, mulesing appears to be goal - directed behavior , suggesting that other factors depicted by the Model of Goal-directed Behavior (MGB; Perugini and Bagozzi In: Br J Soc Psychol, 40: 79–98, 2001 ) may be worth exploring in this context. Finally, these results provide insight into how policy makers may influence farmers to change practices in response to societal pressure for improving farm animal welfare. (shrink)

The relation between Church and state is nowadays at stake. This article concerns the relation between Church and state from an ecclesiastical and canonical point of view. It makes clear, how the ecclesiastical doctrine reacts to social developments in relation to the national state in order to safeguard the independence of the Church. The 19th century ecclesiastical doctrine on the Church as a societas perfecta reacts on doctrines on the national states, which claimed absolute sovereignty and by that subordinated the (...) Church to the civil government and civil law. With societas perfecta doctrine the Church defends its sovereignty in the domain of the spiritual good of men. In this way the Church defines and protects its divine origin and independence from the national state. In the first half of the 20th century the democratic and constitutional national states were developed, which acknowledges religious freedom on a constitutional level as a human and a civil right. Because of this progress the Second Vatican Council could formulate its doctrine on religious freedom based on the traditional ecclesiastical teaching of the freedom of the religious act. By then, the independence of the Church is founded and defended on the freedom of the Church, which is guaranteed in national states, which acknowledge religious freedom as a human and civil right. Although one can say that there is discontinuity in the ecclesiastical teaching on the Church as a societas perfecta and the ecclesiastical doctrine on religious freedom, there exists also continuity, because both ecclesiastical doctrines intend to safeguard the independence of the Church in human society. (shrink)

As the author mentions in the preface to the English edition, this History of Philosophy is the fruit of ideas and research efforts shared in common by the Madrid School of Ortega y Gasset, 1931-1936. Most of these men were educated in Germany, and, besides being original authors in their own right, carried out remarkable efforts of historical research in philosophy, practicing the best techniques of German historical investigation. Marias benefited from these efforts and complemented them with meritorious personal studies. (...) Given the circumstances of its composition, the book is an introduction to, and a dictionary of, philosophy. Because of this, the properly historical side of it is strongly interpretative and somewhat unbalanced. Although Anglo-American philosophy is given some attention, it is not, sufficiently or intimately appreciated. It gives certain authors-the Stoics, Leibniz, Kant, Brentano, the philosophers of life of recent time—a special emphasis that is necessary for a good understanding of our philosophical present. The translation is adequate in preserving the author's elegant and suggestive style.—A. M. (shrink)

In debates about criteria for human death, several camps have emerged, the main two focusing on either loss of the "organism as a whole" (the mainstream view) or loss of consciousness or "personhood." Controversies also rage over the proper definition of "irreversible" in criteria for death. The situation is reminiscent of the proverbial blind men palpating an elephant; each describes the creature according to the part he can touch. Similarly, each camp grasps some aspect of the complex reality of death. (...) The personhood camp, in contrast to the mainstream "organism" camp, recognizes that a human organism can still be a biological living whole even without brain function. The mainstream camp, in contrast to the personhood camp, recognizes that a person can be permanently, even irreversibly unconscious, and still be a living person so long as his/her body is alive. The author proposes that hylomorphic dualism incorporates both these key insights. But to complete the picture of the entire "death elephant," a fundamental paradigm shift is needed to make sense of other seemingly conflicting insights. The author proposes a "semantic bisection" of the concept of death, analogous to the traditional distinction at the beginning of life between "conception" and "birth." To avoid the semantic baggage associated with the term "death," the two new death-related concepts are referred to as "passing away" (or "deceased") and "deanimation," corresponding, respectively, to sociolegal ceasing-to-be (mirror image of birth) and ontological/theological ceasing-to-be of the bodily organism (mirror image of conception). Regarding criteria, the distinguishing feature is whether the cessation of function is permanent (passing away) or irreversible (deanimation). If the "dead donor rule" were renamed the "deceased donor rule" (both acronyms felicitously being "DDR"), the ethics of organ transplantation from non–heart-beating donors could, in principle, be validly governed by the DDR, even though the donors are not yet ontologically "deanimated." Thus, the paradigm shift satisfies both those who insist on maintaining the DDR and those who claim that it has all along been receiving only lip service and should be explicitly loosened to include those who are "as good as dead." Even so, a number of practical caveats remain to be worked out for non–heart-beating protocols. (shrink)

Some day, it may be, a betterGreek scholar and more skilful emendator than I will summon to hisaid from among scientists familiar with the Levant a botanist, aherbalist, a herpetologist, and an entomologist, empanel forconsultations a small body of medical men who have practised in theNear East, and produce an annotated text and translation of Nicander;and when this has been done it will be possible to read him, notindeed with pleasure, but with a good deal less labour and vexationthan (...) attend the process at present. Meanwhile, those whose dutyobliges them to struggle through the Theriaca andAlexipharmaca with the aids now available stand in no need ofthe injunction not to forget him which the author has appended tothose two poems. (shrink)

Generosity is usually reserved for those to whom we are bound by friendship or warm affection; but even where such ties are absent an effective equivalent is our recognition that others, even casual acquaintances, have a right to these same benefits. If warm affection is joined with the regard that men of moral integrity have for such rights, the disposition to confer such benefits upon others is almost always efficacious. Unfortunately, matters are not always so neatly aligned or so simply (...) resolved. The goods at our disposal are in too short supply to permit us adequately to bestow them whenever they are needed, even upon those to whom we are bound by love and affection; and not infrequently those who are entitled to these goods are persons to whom we are not warmly disposed. In any case our limited opportunities and abilities, together with the unexpected and even unpredictable circumstances that defeat even our best intentions, sometimes compel us to choose which of two competing rights, both of which engage our moral concerns, to honor by what we do—or perhaps to choose between a right and a quite different but no less important sort of consideration which, as reasonable agents, we must also respect—hoping that in acting as we do we shall make the best of an unfortunate situation that has been thrust upon us. Inevitably, even though only occasionally, in the complex and even unforeseeable circumstances in which we conduct our affairs with each other, there arises a characteristic play of rights in which one gives way or yields in its moral force in the face of more compelling considerations. (shrink)

What should we make of the intuitions marshaled on behalf of the existence of supererogatory actions, or actions that are “good but not required”? Are they trustworthy or dissembling? This question is important considering the great respect many writers give to them. The attitude of Daniel Guevara is not unusual: "My discussion relies upon the intuition that certain acts, such as those described by Urmson, are supererogatory, indeed, that they are paradigms…I shall proceed on the assumption that a theory (...) is discredited if in fact it makes supererogation impossible." There is thus a widespread attitude that the supererogatory status of certain acts should be taken to be one of those elements out of which a moral theoryshould be constructed, something like one of Rawls’s “considered moral judgments” or “considered convictions of justice.” The comparison with Rawls’ methodology is sometimes quite explicit. My purpose is to throw this conviction – that the supererogatory status of these actions can be accepted with a confidence not too much less than that with which we accept that slavery is wrong – into doubt. Whether there is a category of the supererogatory acts is a matter for another paper; personally I see no conceptual incoherence but merely doubt that it is instantiated very often. My goal shall be rather narrow: to cast doubt upon the reputation of the intuitions. First I shall describe my conclusion abstractly, and why I think the intuitions are much less indubitable than supposed. Then I shall discuss a few common examples of supererogatory acts and show how my account explains them. Finally I shall consider how most important intuitions of supererogatory status – those associated with extreme self-sacrifice – might be integrated into my overall account. (shrink)

If this book had been edited by Feigl rather than as a Festschrift for him it might well pass as Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, IV. There are twenty-six essays by as many contributors, most of whom are familiar faces in collections of this sort: Carnap, Scriven, Sellars, Meehl, Smart, Hanson, Popper, Salmon, Mehlberg, and the editors, to mention a few. Whenever the essays do occupy themselves with a discussion of Feigl's work, it is his work on the (...) mind-body problem and probability and induction that come in for the most extensive treatment. Of the essays taking off from Feigl's "The 'Mental' and the 'Physical,'" Meehl's "The Compleat Autocerebroscopist" is the best, being an exhaustive and often valuable re-consideration of some of the difficulties surrounding the identity theory of the mind-body problem. There is a good deal of less productive re-hash in the other essays, and one wonders whether the creative spurt in the philosophy of science in this country which owes as much to Feigl as anyone has started to wane.—E A. R. (shrink)

Motivated by a deep sense that injustice and inequality are wrong, liberals and reformers in the Western political tradition have focused their energies on policies and programs which seek inclusion: extending the suffrage to those without property; seeking to treat women the same as men, and blacks the same as whites; trying to ensure that as few as possible are excluded from economic opportunity due to lack of resources. Under current conditions, such demands for inclusion take two primary forms, especially (...) in the United States. One is a commitment to using the state to equalize the life chances of individuals. The other is a call for treating groups which have experienced discrimination with full respect. The former leads to the welfare state, while the latter is produced by, and in turn produces, what is commonly called identity politics, the politics of recognition, or the politics of presence. (shrink)

Amazing as it may be, to this day few commentaries on the treatises of Plotinus' Enneads are written. The classic ninth treatise, for example, has hardly been studied. This treatise, however, is of vital importance, because it is in this work that for the first time in the Enneads, the One in its superform emerges and Plotinus dwells on the remarkable phenomenon of a 'mystical union' of the soul with the One. A thorough analysis of the argument and its development (...) next to philosophical and philo-logical support will be welcome to any reader of this in-triguing but difficult treatise. These aims are pursued in the main part of Meijer's work, the commentary. The first part of the book, preceding the commentary, examines the philosophical history of the concept of the One and its status in the first eight treatises. This new approach to the problem of the One leads to striking conclusions. It appears that while Plotinus was writing these first eight treatises, the concept of the One developed from that of a Supreme Entity of a Mesoplatonian character, viz. the upper part of the mind, to One of a Superone above mind. This casts an entirely new light on the position of the One in Plotinus and that of the ninth treatise itself. The third part not only examines the mystical union as pictured in the ninth treatise, but also provides a full scale discussion of Plotinus' descriptions of this union in his en-tire work. The degree of unification, viz. the question whether a part of the mystic self remains intact during the unification, is a matter of vigorous scholarly debate. Meijer shows that, in spite of some inconsistencies in his doctrine about the union, one must accept that Plotinus basically considered the union as a complete absorption of the soul into the Supreme Entity. (shrink)

In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle appears to use an elegant short argument to attack Plato's doctrine of the good, which argument equally appears to attack Aristotle's own doctrine of the good. I consider these two questions: First: Why does Aristotle reverse the judgment of Socrates/Plato on the issue: Which is better - things that are good in themselves, or things that are both good in themselves and good for their consequences? Second: Why does Aristotle attack (...) Plato's doctrine that the Form of the Good is the chief good, with an argument that appears to threaten his own view that eudaimonia is the chief good? I think the answers to these two questions are related. The elegant short argument in question I call "Aristotle's Fast Argument." After apologizing for criticizing views held by friends of his, Aristotle deploys the Fast Argument as a clincher to cap off his refutation of Plato's view that the Form of the Good is the chief good: "And one might ask the question, what in the world they mean by 'a thing itself', if in man himself and in a particular man the account of man is one and the same. For in so far as they are men, they will in no respect differ; and if this is so, neither will there be a difference in so far as they are good. But again it will not be good any the more for being eternal, since that which lasts long is no whiter than that which perishes in a day.". I explore this sketchily presented Fast Argument. I consider why Aristotle may think it is valid and why he does not seem to realize that, on readings that make it effective against Plato's view, his Fast Argument also seems to apply to his own view that eudaimonia is the chief good. This is what I will call "Aristotle's Dilemma." If the Fast Argument is interpreted too narrowly, its point about the whiteness of a white thing being independent of its duration will not apply to the goodness of the Form of the Good. If it is interpreted broadly enough to undermine the claim of the Form of the Good to be the chief good, it will equally undermine that claim for eudaimonia. Finally, I discuss some of the things Plato and Aristotle say about the chief good, and comparable things Immanuel Kant says about the good will. I draw some speculative conclusions that focus on the importance for Aristotle of the goodness of the chief good not being at risk. (shrink)

This paper focuses on two questions: Is understanding intimately bound up with accurately representing the world? Is understanding intimately bound up with downstream abilities? We will argue that the answer to both these questions is “yes”, and for the same reason-both accuracy and ability are important elements of orthogonal evaluative criteria along which understanding can be assessed. More precisely, we will argue that representational-accuracy and intelligibility are good-making features of a state of understanding. Interestingly, both evaluative claims have been (...) defended by philosophers in the literature on understanding as the criterion of evaluation. We argue that proponents of both approaches have important insights and that, drawing on both their own observations and a few novel arguments, we can construct a more complete picture of understanding evaluation. We thus posit the theory of there being Multiple Understanding Dimensions. The main thing to note about our dualism regarding the evaluative criteria of understanding is that it accounts for the intuitions about cases underlying both previously held positions. (shrink)

Ratté has provided a sympathetic but mildly critical account of the leading French, English, and American precipitators of the Modernist crisis in the Catholic Church, a crisis which floated to the surface just before the turn of the century with Loisy's L'Evangile et l'Eglise and reached its climax in its condemnation by Pius X in his 1907 Encyclical, Pascendi Dominici Gregis. Ratté treats each of the individuals separately by means of what can be styled an intellectual biography interwoven with the (...) events which constituted the history of Modernism. The result is a good introduction in some depth to the men themselves and to the history of Modernism as a whole. There are obvious parallels between the Catholic Church then and now, and the idea that we are witnessing today the tardy triumph of many Modernist tenets is exploited in passing in the book proper, and to some degree in the final evaluative chapter, "Modernism and Modernization." For the most part though, Ratté is content to play the historian rather than the theologian. The book has an excellent bibliography.--E. A. R. (shrink)

'Marginalia' are notes made in the margins of a book. It could be general comments, glosses or scholia. For centuries marginalia was considered an important scholarly activity, almost as important as the original text. The famous marginalia on the text of Homer's Iliad dates back to the 5th century before Christ. Some of the most important theologians in history kept themselves busy by adding marginalia to texts. Luther's marginalia on the text of Paul's Letter to the Romans is a (...) class='Hi'>good example of this type of scholarly endeavour. Writing about the life and work of a fellow theologian could at best be a few marginal notes - sometimes it is a mere scribble, sometimes an interpretation of a text and sometimes commentary is necessary. This contribution reflects on the life and work of I.W.C. van Wyk, a theologian who dedicated his life to the church, mission and reformed theology. (shrink)

The idea that simplicity matters in science is as old as science itself, with the much cited example of Ockham's Razor, 'entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem': entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity. A problem with Ockham's razor is that nearly everybody seems to accept it, but few are able to define its exact meaning and to make it operational in a non-arbitrary way. Using a multidisciplinary perspective including philosophers, mathematicians, econometricians and economists, this 2002 monograph examines simplicity (...) by asking six questions: what is meant by simplicity? How is simplicity measured? Is there an optimum trade-off between simplicity and goodness-of-fit? What is the relation between simplicity and empirical modelling? What is the relation between simplicity and prediction? What is the connection between simplicity and convenience? The book concludes with reflections on simplicity by Nobel Laureates in Economics. (shrink)

"Permanent Things reminds us that some of the century's most imaginative minds - G. K. Chesterton, T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis, Dorothy Sayers, and Evelyn Waugh - were profoundly at odds with the secularist spirit of the age, seeing progressive enlightenment as ushering in, not a millennium of perfect freedom, but a Waste Land whose inhabitants - Waugh's "vile bodies," Eliot's "hollow men," Lewis's "men without chests" - can find refuge from their boredom and anomie only in the ceaseless (...) acquisition of things or in the consoling illusions of pseudo religions - "distracted from distraction by distraction," as Eliot memorably put it." "How does one explain the desolation of a world which, though richly endowed with material comforts, is mentally and spiritually impoverished? The essayists here are united, as were their subjects, by a need to try to answer this question. Modern man's poverty of spirit, visible alike in so much of his art and architecture, his literature and philosophy and political science, reflects his loss of any good reasons for living - his loss of the Permanent Things." "The Christian writers whose work is eloquently interpreted in this book repay our attention for at least two reasons. First is their ability to sharpen our awareness of what, by any previous civilized standards, must be called the abnormal condition of modern man. For all the writers treated in this book, it was never enough to simply capture the spiritual aridity of modern life. It was also necessary to speak of a moral order that may yet be restored by the expressive power and beauty of the written word."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved. (shrink)

One proposal to significantly reduce cardiovascular disease is the idea of administering a ‘polypill’—a combination of drugs that reduce the risk of heart disease and carry few side effects—to everyone over the age of 55. Despite their promise, population strategies like the polypill have not been well-accepted. In this article, I defend the polypill by appealing to fairness. The argument focuses on the need to fairly distribute the costs to individuals. While the fact that population strategies like the polypill impose (...) minor costs on everyone has primarily been used to criticize such strategies, I argue that it gives us a reason to support them. I argue that implementing a population strategy with the polypill contributes to the public good of ‘health system capacity’. I then explain that public goods have widely accepted obligations: they carry an obligation to fairly distribute the costs of the goods and prevent free-riding. Thus, we have at least one pro tanto moral reason to implement the polypill. As such, this article challenges the current literature on the topic, which has largely held adopting population strategies like the polypill to be unjustifiable. (shrink)

For the most of us, work is an entirely non-discretionary activity, an inescapable and irreducible fact of existence. According to E. F. Schumacher one of the darkest aspects of contemporary work life is the existence of an appalling number of men and women condemned to work which has no connection with their inner lives, no meaning for them whatever. Work for too many people is perceived as down-time, something that has to be done, but seldom adding to who they are. (...) And yet recent surveys indicate that 74% of the work force would chose to work even if they were not financially required to do so. Why?This paper contends that people want to work because they are intuitively aware that work, be it bad or good, helps to shape them. It gives them a sense of direction and allows them the opportunity for personal creativity and fulfillment. Work is the axis of human self-making. Work molds the person and work is the mark of a person. Satisfaction with life seems to be related to satisfaction with our work and the quality of our lives seems dependent on the quality of work that we do. (shrink)

The ideal city of Plato could only come true if three great and unlikely changes were made in the state. Neither Plato's contemporaries nor later generations have been able to breast the second of these ‘waves,’ which brings in a new order of marriage for guardians. The scheme is condemned as not only not good or possible—the Platonic tests—but as inconsistent with itself and with the account given in the Timaeus. The parts under censure are the so-called table of (...) prohibited affinities and the sanction of infanticide. It would be strange to find discrepancies in a proposal so important for Plato's state that details cannot well be left to some Damon, and I hope to show that difficulties arise only when critics do not place themselves exactly at Plato's point of view. He conceived a certain problem with sharp outlines, and his answer is precisely adapted to that. The first wave left the guardians as a family of men and women living in common. How was it possible to preserve this communal life and provide for the future of the guardian class? If the rulers failed to choose aright here, an oracle foretold the decay of the city . Therefore Plato's rigid preoccupation in the second wave is to secure for the archons entire control over the birth of guardian children. Otherwise the community will sink into mere promiscuity and the stock will degenerate. In short, Plato tries to ensure that, apart from the necessary getting of children for the state, the guardians shall be friends and not lovers. Our special problems arise from the two questions—πως παδοποιήσονtαι, καì γεκομÉνους πως θρÉψουσι; . Let us begin with the first of these. (shrink)

The ideal city of Plato could only come true if three great and unlikely changes were made in the state. Neither Plato's contemporaries nor later generations have been able to breast the second of these ‘waves,’ which brings in a new order of marriage for guardians. The scheme is condemned as not only not good or possible—the Platonic tests—but as inconsistent with itself and with the account given in the Timaeus. The parts under censure are the so-called table of (...) prohibited affinities and the sanction of infanticide. It would be strange to find discrepancies in a proposal so important for Plato's state that details cannot well be left to some Damon, and I hope to show that difficulties arise only when critics do not place themselves exactly at Plato's point of view. He conceived a certain problem with sharp outlines, and his answer is precisely adapted to that. The first wave left the guardians as a family of men and women living in common. How was it possible to preserve this communal life and provide for the future of the guardian class? If the rulers failed to choose aright here, an oracle foretold the decay of the city. Therefore Plato's rigid preoccupation in the second wave is to secure for the archons entire control over the birth of guardian children. Otherwise the community will sink into mere promiscuity and the stock will degenerate. In short, Plato tries to ensure that, apart from the necessary getting of children for the state, the guardians shall be friends and not lovers. Our special problems arise from the two questions—πως παδοποιήσονtαι, καì γεκομÉνους πως θρÉψουσι;. Let us begin with the first of these. (shrink)

Clinical ethics support, including ethics consultation, has become established in the field of medical practice throughout the world. This practice has been regarded as useful, most notably in the UK and the USA, in solving ethical problems encountered by both medical practitioners and those who receive medical treatment. In Japan, however, few services are available to respond to everyday clinical ethical issues, although a variety of difficult ethical problems arise daily in the medical field: termination of life support, euthanasia and (...) questions about patient autonomy. In light of these conditions, a group of 17 volunteer educators and researchers from the area of biomedical ethics, including the authors, have formed the Clinical Ethics Support and Education Project, and began providing Japan’s first small team clinical ethics consultation service in October, 2006. Members include scholars of biomedical ethics, scholars of philosophy and ethics, legal professionals and legal scholars, nurses and doctors, consisting of five women and 12 men. Consultation teams, made up of a small number of members, were organised each time a request for consultation was received. Over approximately 15 months (October 2006–December 2007), the programme received 22 consultation requests from medical practitioners and medical institutions, and three from the families of patients. In this paper, we will discuss the status of our consultation service and examples of consultation cases we have handled. In addition, we will examine the process of evaluating small team clinical ethics consultation services, as well as the strengths and weakness of such programmes. (shrink)

In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle appears to use an elegant short argument to attack Plato’s doctrine of the good, which argument equally appears to attack Aristotle’s own doctrine of the good. I consider these two questions: First: Why does Aristotle reverse the judgment of Socrates/Plato on the issue: Which is better – things that are (only) good in themselves, or things that are both good in themselves and good for their consequences? Second: Why does Aristotle (...) attack Plato’s doctrine that the Form of the Good is the chief good, with an argument that appears to threaten his own view that eudaimonia is the chief good? I think the answers to these two questions are related. The elegant short argument in question I call “Aristotle’s Fast Argument.”After apologizing for criticizing views held by friends of his, Aristotle deploys the Fast Argument as a clincher to cap off his refutation of Plato’s view that the Form of the Good is the chief good: “And one might ask the question, what in the world they mean by ‘a thing itself’, if in man himself and in a particular man the account of man is one and the same. For in so far as they are men, they will in no respect differ; and if this is so, neither will there be a difference in so far as they are good. But again it will not be good any the more for being eternal, since that which lasts long is no whiter than that which perishes in a day.” (Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, 1096 a34–b4). I explore this sketchily presented Fast Argument. I consider why Aristotle may think it is valid and why he does not seem to realize that, on readings that make it effective against Plato’s view, his Fast Argument also seems to apply to his own view that eudaimonia is the chief good. This is what I will call “Aristotle’s Dilemma.” If the Fast Argument is interpreted too narrowly, its point about the whiteness of a white thing being independent of its duration will not apply to the goodness of the Form of the Good. If it is interpreted broadly enough to undermine the claim of the Form of the Good to be the chief good, it will equally undermine that claim for eudaimonia. Finally, I discuss some of the things Plato and Aristotle say about the chief good, and comparable things Immanuel Kant says about the good will. I draw some speculative conclusions that focus on the importance for Aristotle of the goodness of the chief good not being at risk. (shrink)

Women generally initiate, lead, and constitute the rank and file of environmental justice activism. However, there is little research on why there are comparatively so few men involved in these movements. Using the environmental justice movement in the Central Appalachian coalfields as a case study, we examine the ways that environmental justice activism is gendered, with a focus on how women’s and men’s identities both shape and constrain their involvement in gendered ways. The analysis relies on 20 interviews with women (...) and men grassroots activists working for environmental justice in the coalfields of Appalachia. We find that women draw on their identities as “mothers” and “Appalachians” to justify their activism, while the hegemonic masculinity of the region, which is tied to the coal industry, has the opposite effect on men, deterring their movement involvement. We explore the implications of these findings for understanding the relationship of gender to environmental justice activism. (shrink)

Weight-gain in psychiatric populations is a common clinical challenge. Many patients suffering from mental disorders, when exposed to psychotropic medications, gain significant weight with or without other side-effects. In addition to reducing the patients' willingness to comply with treatment, this weight-gain may create added psychological or physiological problems that need to be addressed. Thus, it is critical that clinicians take precautions to monitor and control weight-gain and take into account and treat all problems facing an individual. In this review, we (...) examine some of the key issues surrounding weight-gain in individuals suffering from mental disorders for contemporary practitioners in community clinics. We describe some factors known to make certain patients more susceptible to treatment-induced weight-gain and mechanisms implicated in this process. We also highlight a few psychological and pharmacological interventions that have proven effective in weight management. Importantly, we provide critical steps for management and prevention of weight-gain and related issues in the clinical practice of psychopharmacology. (shrink)

This is a sustained attack on what the author termed "decido-phobia"—the fear of making fateful decisions. The book begins with an illuminating discussion of ten popular strategies of decido-phobia. Of particular interest to moral philosophy is the attack on "moral rationalism" which "claims that purely rational procedures can show what one ought to do or what would constitute a just society". "Moral irrationalism" is also criticized for ignoring the relevance of reasons "when one is confronted with fateful decision". An ethics (...) of autonomous men is proposed as an alternative to decido-phobia. This ethics involves four cardinal virtues of love, honesty, courage, and "humbition," the last a new coinage for "fusion of ambition and honesty." Both the concepts of justice and guilt are subjected to detailed criticism, since they constitute the chief obstacles on the road to autonomy. Unlike Kantian autonomy, Professor Kaufmann focuses on that which "consists of making with open eyes the decisions that give shape to one’s life". There is no need of Kantian maxims or categorical imperative. Autonomy involves a new integrity or high standards of honesty which consist in a sort of lived intellectual honesty that is characteristic of a mind that is open to alternatives and spirit of questions. Alienation is regarded as a price of autonomy. A searching critique of current conceptions of alienation is given in Chapter 6. The author recommends a creative autonomous way of life. In his concluding words "guilt is mired in the past, as is retributive justice. Distributive justice is struck in the present, but by the time it has figured out how to cope with that, it is dated. We must move beyond guilt and justice. We must give up the pleasant notion that we can have all good things at once. What is best is not things at all but creative autonomy". This is an important theme and requires closer scrutiny of its central arguments and its suggested alternative ethics of creative autonomy.—A.S.C. (shrink)

Reading, a micro-level and subjective activity, is a mechanism through which gender is constructed and reinforced. Drawing on insights from cultural studies and feminist literary critics, and applying sociological perspectives and methodologies, we explored how 53 women and men read and interpreted two short stories, William Faulkner's “A Rose for Emily” and Jayne Anne Phillip's “Home.” We found that the gender of the readers had relatively few effects on their interpretations, but that indicators of life experience were influential. In general, (...) more substantial life experience as reflected in greater age, being married, and having children was associated with more sympathetic, empathic reactions to the major characters. Ideological positions also influenced readers' interpretations, when those positions were relevant to the themes of the text; these individual values and attitudes were associated with more particularistic patterns of empathy. Rather than dismissing gender as an influence on reading, however, we suggest that gender influences reading and interpretation partially through the pervasive gender-markings of social context. (shrink)